


Carry Me Home

by tilliwokeupnexttoyou



Category: Roosterteeth - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 07:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4171782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tilliwokeupnexttoyou/pseuds/tilliwokeupnexttoyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris just wanted to celebrate his fourth year at Roosterteeth with his friends. But after Blaine ditches him, Chris meets the bartender of Barfly’s. Then being ditched does’t seem so bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by The Ready Set’s song Carry Me Home.

**May 22, 2015**

“For real, Chris? Again?”

Chris sat up straight and rubbed his eyes tiredly. 

“Hi Zoe,” he said, his eyes squinting as he grinned.

The girl on the other side of the bar leaned on the counter and blew the hair out of her face in frustration. This was the fourth Friday night in a row that this brown eyed guy got unknowingly ditched by his friends and gotten very very drunk in the mean time as he waited for them to return.

“I don’t think your blond friend is coming back,” Zoe said as she wiped the bar top down with a wet towel.

Chris nodded slowly, “That’s Blaine. He’s blond. You’re blonde,” he slurred.

Zoe pushed her dyed white blonde hair back behind her red bandanna, “I’m not naturally blonde,” she told him.

“Me neither,” Chris said solemnly, as if he was disappointed with his chestnut colored hair.

Zoe grabbed a broom from the corner and began sweeping around the bar, “How do you plan on getting home, Chris?”

Chris pursed his lips and shrugged.

“Cab? Uber?” Zoe suggested, sweeping a pile of cigarette butts into a dust pan.

Chris frowned and then grumbled something under his breath. Zoe put the broom and dust pan back into the corner, and then turned to face the terribly drunk guy at her bar. She placed her hands on her hips as he met her eyes. His dark eyes shone against the neon beer lights behind her and his face was flushed red from drinking.

“Do you want me to drive you home again?” she asked gently.

Chris nodded and did his best to hide the excitement behind his eyes.

“Alright,” Zoe said, “Give me a few minutes to do all my closing duties, and then we’ll get out of here.”

“Okay,” Chris said taking another swig of the beer in his hand.

Chris watched the blonde girl as she cleaned and wiped down the bar, returning liquor bottles and menus back to their original location. This Friday, Chris noticed Zoe was wearing more revealing clothes as summer officially began in Austin. Tonight she was wearing a plain black tank top tucked into dark denim shorts that were over a pair of ripped up tights. Her outfit was fairly simple, but Chris thought she rocked it and noticed many male customers leering at her through the night.

Earlier that night, Chris overheard some frat guy tell Zoe that she should ditch her glasses and show off her beautiful blue eyes more. Zoe smiled politely and told him to fuck off.

Chris smiled at the thought and watched as Zoe entered the bathroom to replace the hand soap. He was really fond of the red bandanna she used to tie her hair back. She was wearing it the first time he met her.

**May 1, 2015**

Brandon and Blaine took Chris out for a couple drinks at a bar down on 6th street called Barfly’s. They were celebrating Chris’ fourth anniversary of working for Roosterteeth.

They decided to go to Barfly’s rather than their regular bar just to try something new. They really liked the vibe in the new bar, preferring places with a chill hang out vibe rather than a dance club vibe. They drank and joked for about two hours before a dark haired girl near the jukebox caught Blaine’s eye. He told Chris and Brandon that he would for sure come back with the girl’s number.

About an hour later, Blaine was still huddled in the corner whispering into the tipsy girl’s ear. Brandon clapped Chris on the shoulder, “Alright, man, I gotta go. On Fridays, me and my girlfriend like to order Italian food and watch Chopped.”

Chris furrowed his eyebrows at his over-sharing friend, but nodded, “Alright, see you on work Monday, dude. Later.”

Chris scrolled through his phone, reading all the reactions to his most recent short video. He looked up and raised his hand to catch one of the bartender’s attention.

A shorter blonde girl waved at him across the bar, “What can I getcha? Another drink?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” Chris said, showing her his empty beer bottle. She reached behind the bar and grabbed a bottle. She pushed the cold beer into the bottle opener glued to the side of the bar. She handed it to him and beamed behind her black framed glasses, “Enjoy! Let me know if you need anything else,” she told him.

“Oh, I will. I’m probably going to be here for a while. That’s my friend over there in the corner,” he said nodding towards the jukebox.

The girl stood on her tip toes to look over the sea of heads, “I don’t see anyone in the corner,” she said.

Chris swiveled around in his chair, eyes darting around for his muscular friend. “What the hell? Where did he go?”

He reached for his phone, hoping for a message. Nothing. He shot Blaine a grumpy text, and then turned to frown at the blonde bartender.

“Did you get ditched?” she asked, a pitied expression on her face.

Chris shook his head, “Maybe they just went for a walk,” he said, “Surely he’ll be back in a few minutes.”

A few minutes turned into an hour and then two more hours. Before Chris noticed, he was quite drunk. He waved at the bartender again and requested another drink.

The light haired girl shook her head, her lips tight in a firm line.

“What?” Chris asked.

“I gotta cut you off, man,” she said, “We can get in trouble for over serving people, and I think you reached that limit.”

Chris frowned at the slightly blurry girl, “Listen…” he said, grasping for her name.

“Zoe,” she supplied.

Chris nodded, his head swaying dangerously low, “Listen Zoe. I’m just waiting for my friend to come back and take me home. And alcohol will make that waiting more bearable.”

Zoe squinted at him for a moment, “Fine,” she said, “But only if you drink this glass of water, too.” She placed a large cup of ice water in front of him. Chris grimaced at her, but complied.

“Doesn’t seem like the best of friend,” Zoe said as she organized the cash register. Chris shrugged, “Usually I don’t mind, Blaine is pretty girl crazy, so I’m used to it. But today we were celebrating my fourth year with our company.”

“Company?” Zoe asked as she counted out the money in the drawer. She wasn’t one to sit still and always had to be doing something with her hands.

“Yeah, have you heard of Roosterteeth?” he asked, hopeful. Most people that live in Austin know the company, but it wasn’t super rare to come across people that had never heard of them.

“Red VS Blue, right?” she said, pouring a drink for a customer and handing it off.

“Yeah!” Chris said excitedly, “I make shorts and have a show called Social Disorder and just whatever,” he said, terrible at describing what he did for the company.

“That’s awesome!” she said.

“What do you do?”

She finally stopped moving and placed her elbows on the bar, facing him.  
“Oh, I go to UT and work here to help pay for school. I’m a fashion design major,” she grinned.

“That’s cool! I have no fashions sense,” he said, gesturing to his plain blue jeans and plain red shirt. She smiled and started to reply when a customer on the other side of the bar caught her attention. She gave him an apologetic smile and went off to help the new guy. Chris yawned and laid his head down on his arm for just a moment. He just wanted to rest his eyes.

“Hey, man, you gotta wake up.”

Chris lifted his head off of his arms, his cheeks red from sleeping on his arms for the past 20 minutes or so, but also from the amount of alcohol he had drank tonight. He rubbed his eyes sleepily, and looked around. He fished his phone out of his pocket and saw that he still had no messages.

“Damn it,” Chris muttered.

“No luck?” Zoe asked.

“No,” he shook his head, “Guess I might as well go.” He went to stand up but stumbled a bit to the left into a bar stool. He recovered his balance and looked up at Zoe sheepishly.

Zoe shook her head at him, but smiled, “Hey, we close in ten minutes. If you want, I can give you a ride home so you don’t have to spend money on a cab.”

Chris nodded enthusiastically, “Yeah, that sounds great! Just let me know when we can go.”

Zoe cleaned and swept the bar, “Hey Roxy! I’m leaving now!” she yelled towards her co-worker on the other side of the bar. It was empty now and Roxanne was stacking chairs to clean around. She gave Zoe and thumbs up and continued sweeping.

Zoe grabbed her purse out from under the bar and turned to Chris. His eyes were glazed over as he scrolled through his phone in boredom. He glanced up and saw she was ready to go. He hopped out of his chair, “I’m ready!” he slurred.

Zoe smiled at his enthusiasm and nodded, “Alright, let’s go!”

Zoe lived about 15 minutes away from Chris’ house, but she didn’t mind driving out of her way to get her new drunk friend home. Despite the odd circumstances, Zoe really enjoyed having Chris for company all night.

As she drove him home, Chris told her all about his time at UT and they found out they had the same Philosophy professor at different times. He told her about how much he enjoyed writing and filming and watching as what he imagines becomes real. Zoe told him about learning to knit from her grandmother and being obsessed with it and then moving on to sewing and more complicated things.

“My dad probably has like 50 pictures of me wearing my mom’s clothes and high heels,” Zoe laughed, gripping the wheel as she turned into Chris’ drive way.

“I definitely want to see those pictures,” Chris smiled but his eyes were tired.

“Well, we’re here,” Zoe waved towards his house.

“Hey, we are…” Chris said, just noticing that the car stopped moving.

Zoe sat for a moment in silence, unsure. “Do…Do you need help to get inside or do you got it?”

Chris rolled his head to the side to look at her, “Yes.”

Zoe pressed her lips together to keep from laughing and then she unbuckled her seat belt. She got out of her car and made her way around to the passengers side. She opened it and bent over to be on level with Chris.

“Come on, Chris. Get out of the car,” she prompted.

He lifted himself to get out, but his seat belt held him back. He sat back and groaned in frustration.

Zoe rolled her eyes and leaned over him to unbuckle him. She could smell the alcohol on him, but under that was a coffee smell and some kind of nice cologne.

“Up you go,” she said, pulling him by his arm out of the car. She had an arm around him as he leaned on her and put his arm around her neck as she pushed the door closed with her hip. She managed to walk to his front door easily enough.

“Chris? Key?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a key ring full of at least 20 keys. “This key,” he said, picking one out of the bunch.

She plucked it out of his hand and let them into his house. She looked around, trying to not be impressed. Zoe was only 22 and she couldn’t imagine being able to afford a house anytime soon.

“That way…” Chris slurred, nodding in the direction of the hallway to their right. Zoe could see a bed framed in the door at the end of the hallway. She led them there and helped Chris get on his bed.

“I think I drank too much…” he breathed out tiredly, his brown eyes finding hers in the dark.

Zoe nodded as she arranged the pillows under his head. Something about his sweet brown eyes made her run her fingers through his hair. It was a comforting gesture, that’s all. Zoe was a bartender and was use to taking care of drunk friends.

Chris’ eyes were closed now as he hummed happily under her fingers. She repeated her motions through his hair for a couple minutes until his breathing was slow and constant. She got up and grabbed the decorative blanket covering a chair in the corner and threw it over his sleeping form.

She glanced back at him before she left, and she felt warm at the sight of his sweet face fast asleep. I hope I see him again, she thought.

The next day, around 2 in the afternoon, Chris awoke on his bed fully clothed. He sat up, a pressure pounding behind his eyes. He rubbed his eyes and checked his phone, remembering what happened last night. Blaine never texted him. What a dick.

Chris noticed the blanket on him and remembered the cute bartender Zoe driving him home. How drunk was he that she offered to drive him home? Chris smiled slightly thinking of the bespectacled bartender. She was so nice and interesting and cute, Chris thought, he mind racing as his head pounded.

He grabbed his phone and tapped on Blaine’s number.

“Heya Chris,” Blaine’s familiar voice said, “I’m really sorry about ditching you-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chris cut across, “But you can do me a favor to make it up to me.”

“What?” Blaine said, unsure. Usually favors for Chris involved dressing in ridiculous costumes or telling stupid jokes for short videos.

“So,” Chris said, “Next week, I want to go back to Barfly’s, and I want you to ditch me again.”

“I…You _want_ me to ditch you?”


End file.
